In English, there are eleven basic color terms — black, blue, brown, gray, green, orange, pink, purple, red, white and yellow.note Of course, these are not all entirely distinct; black, grey and white are different shades of the neutral hue, brown is deep orange, pink is light red. These colors are fairly consistent, each with culturally canonical hues, by which similar hues are usually associated — for instance, scarlet is considered a type of red, gold is considered a type of yellow, etc.

In the Sinosphere — the regions that either speak one of the Chinese languages (such as China, Singapore, Taiwan, etc.), or have languages that incorporate massive amounts of Chinese-derived extended vocabulary and have historically made widespread use of Chinese written characters (such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam), these regions traditionally have the same word for both blue and green, indicated with the Chinese character 青 (or its simplified glyph 靑).note This character is read as reconstructed Middle Chinese tsheng, Mandarin qīng, Vietnamese thanh (poetic) or xanh (daily usage), Korean 청 cheong, indigenous Japanese あお ao, さお sao and しい shii, and Sino-Japanese せい sei and しょう shō. Most natural and traditional uses of both blue and green are represented by this word, including the color of the sea, the color of forests, etc. In more recent centuries, there has arisen a greater need to distinguish the concepts that English-speakers would understand as blue and green. The newer compound Chinese character 綠 (Japanese simplified: 緑, Chinese simplified: 绿) came to use in Chinese, Japanese and Korean to specifically mean green as opposed to blue.note This character is as reconstructed Middle Chinese ljowk, Mandarin jī, jí, lǜ and qī, Vietnamese lục, Korean 록 rok and 녹 nok, indigenous Japanese みどり midori, and Sino-Japanese りょく ryoku and ろく roku. Meanwhile, in China, the character 藍 (simplified: 蓝), note Mandarin: lán has been implemented to phase out the ambiguous 青 as the definitive character for blue.

However, even today, these two terms are not universally distinguished as would be understood in English. For example, forests are still 青 (blue). Green eyes are also confusingly 青 — they were known to traditional Chinese civilization because there were ethnic groups on the periphery of their civilization (such as the Tocharian and Turkic peoples) who often had green eyes. And even green traffic lights are 青. But not all "natural" green things are 青 and not all "modern" green things are 綠 — for instance, gemstones such as jade and emeralds are 綠 (green). Perhaps most confusingly, even though forests and grass are 青 (blue), verdant flora is 綠 (green). In Cantonese, 青 usually refers to yellow-green or lime green more often than blue.

The Sinosphere is not the only place where languages often muddle the distinction between green and blue. This has also been observed in the modern Celtic languages (Irish, Welsh, etc.), where there is not only some muddling between green and blue, but also between green and gray. South Slavic languages call blond hair blue; in this case, blue originally meant "fair", Similarly, older Italians lump orange in with red. Before about 1500, orange in English was lumped in with either red (as with "red" hair, robin "redbreast"), or yellow/gold; the colour orange is actually named after the fruit. You can see this in Spanish, too: the word for the fruit (naranja) is the root of the word for the color(anaranjado).

One anthropological researcher had the idea of taking a green object and a blue object, and asking his test subjects "Are these two exactly the same color?" He had thought that the explanation for this trope was some kind of colorblindness. Naturally, however, they could see that they were different colors: of course the two objects are different shades of tscheng.

Recent advances in neuropsychological and archeological research suggest that the conception of colors in different civilizations accompanied the ability to create dyes of that color artificially. In most cultures, the technology for manufacturing blue dyes was most difficult and came last and contributed to the conflation between blue and green. for more details, listen to this audio clip.

For further reading, see Guy Deutscher’s Through the Language Glass for an in-depth explanation of this trope and its equivalents in other countries.

Examples

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Anime and Manga

In Dragon Ball Z, a Super Saiyan's eye color is usually greenish in the anime, but from time to time they appear blue in some Toriyama illustrations, as well as in some promotional media and certain isolated anime episodes.

Eureka Seven AO uses both colors interchangeably. Not surprising, since the troublesome word that means both "blue" and "green" is right in the title, and it's the protagonist's name: Ao has blue-green hair, blue clothes, drives a robot that emits green contrails, and works for Generation Bleu.

Detective Conan: Detective Takagi has been given several contradictory witness statements about a robber in the case Sato's Omiai. Some of his confusion is cleared up when he realizes that an elderly witness used the old word for "green" (あお ao) instead of the new word (みどり midori), and that therefore the witness had said that the robber was wearing green, not blue (as he'd originally thought).

Angela and Tata from Jewelpet have respectively blue and turquoise eyes, but belong to the Magical Green class (the attribution of these classes depends entirely on eye color).

Misty's eye color is very inconsistent in the Pokémon anime. Sometimes she has blue eyes and other times they're green. Since the switch to digital she's usually been a Significant Green-Eyed Redhead though.

In Yona of the Dawn, which takes place in a pseudo-ancient, semi-medieval East Asian fantasy kingdom, there are characters known as the Blue Dragon and the Green Dragon. However, it's the Blue Dragon who is the focus of a story arc with the title translated variously as "The Lushing Forest" or "The Forest Lushing Blue." Aoku naru mori literally means 'the forest becoming blue,' but is understood to mean 'the forest flourishing with new, lush plant life.' The old word for green is used, to signify the double meaning: the forest is 'blue,' because it used to be the home of the Blue Dragon village.

This is referenced in Massugu ni Ikou when Hanako notices a green bug and wonders why it's called an "aomushi" (which translates to "blue-green insect").

Comic Books

In The World of Ginger Fox, Ginger's eyes are sometimes blue and sometimes green. The cover art shows her with an eye color partway between green and blue.

Literature

The Odyssey and The Iliad never mention the color blue. It might be slightly odd, given all the sea-faring in the Odyssey, but this was because the ancient Greek language did not have a word at the time that meant 'blue'. Instead, the sea was called 'wine-dark'. The word that in middle-Greek came to mean blue (or blue-green, as the case may be) κυανό (where we get 'cyan') was used to describe the color of grass (i.e. what we would call green), as well as honey and the hair of blond people (i.e. what we would call yellow).

It should be noted that the color of iron, sheep and clouds were all likened to each other (gray, that is, not white) but the word used in ancient greek was the word ιοδνεφής that in later greek came to mean 'purple' or 'violet'.

This trope causes a bit of confusion when it comes to translating Chinese epics; for instance Romance of the Three Kingdoms has a handful of translation difficulties, most commonly in trying to determine if Guan Yu's iconic Blade on a Stick is the Green Dragon Saber or Blue Dragon Blade. Since Three Kingdoms uses color prominently in its descriptions, this has led to something of a lack of consistency in translations as well as in derivativeworks.

Live-Action TV

In Tokkei Winspector, the heroes are meant to reflect the traffic lights. With that said, Walter was more bluish than greenish.

Similar to Winspector, Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger/Power Rangers S.P.D. has the finishing move of the main robot use a gun with three colored barrels resembling traffic lights... with the colors being red, yellow and bluish green. Then again, "green" lights are tinted blue, so that red-green colorblind people can distinguish between a green light and a red light.

And before them was robot policeman Signalman from Gekisou Sentai Carranger - or Blue Senturion from Power Rangers Turbo. He has a prominent traffic light theme ("fighting for traffic safety" being the Carranger motto), and is covered in red, yellow and blue lights.

Oddly inverted in Samurai Sentai Shinkenger. The Shinkengers are meant to be the latest descendants of five (later six) mystical bloodlines dating back to ancient Japan. Despite this, there are separate blue and green rangers even though Japan didn't have a concept of blue being different from green when they supposedly originated.

What makes this especially annoying is that the first ancient Japan-themed Super Sentai, Ninja Sentai Kakuranger, got this right. Not only did it omit the green ranger (the team colors being red, white, blue, black and yellow) but their blue ranger's costume used a greenish/cyan shade of blue in contrast to most blue rangers' deep royal blue coloration.

Count Takeshi's Emerald Guard wore jumpsuits that were far closer to blue in color than any shade of green.

Amy Lee of Evanescence did an interview on Tokyo FM, and was complimented on her green eyes. This is where it gets complicated. It's been said that she has green eyes naturally, and wore blue contacts around the time of the first album. This interview was near the time of the second album, but in her childhood photos she had blue eyes. It gets really complicated, because in the Japanese translation, the DJ used the English loanword グリーン, or green.

Miku Hatsune's thematic color tends to fluctuate between any given shade of green or blue, depending on the artist.

In "Our Song" by Elton John he mentions he doesn't remember if his boyfriend has blue or green eyes.

Somewhat justified in that wood is associated with air in Wu Xing (contrary to the Japanese "translations" listing Seiryuu as earth and Byakko as air), so you can either go along with Wind Is Green or simply see the Azure Dragon as a manifestation of the sky.

Brown in a much more common a color for lentil stew than red. It's quite likely that when the Book of Genesis was composed, the two weren't distinguished in Hebrew.

Video Games

In the early days of Super Mario Bros., the color of Luigi's clothes was inconsistently portrayed as blue or green. It took a little while before the vivid green color became firmly established.

Fox McCloud from Star Fox is one of the better documented examples of this trope. In the 1993 comic, his eyes were green in the early pages, then blue through the rest of the comic. They remained blue in Star Fox 2. Star Fox 64 had a particular Art Shift that did not show eye color at all, but Farewell, Beloved Falco and Star Fox Adventures firmly established him with emerald green eyes. But this began to slip again in Star Fox: Assault, where most of the official art showed him with green eyes, but at least one picture not only showed him with blue eyes, but the blue faded to green within the same irises. They're green again in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

In Style Savvy Fashion Forward the "green" color category consists mainly of teal colors. The colors most western players would call green is under "yellow greens".

In Metal Gear Solid 3, Big Boss' eyes are described as blue in dialogue, but they appear pale green. Snake's eyes were also dark green in Metal Gear Solid 2, but described in his bio in Metal Gear Solid 4 as blue and appear clearly blue in that game. They've appeared genuinely blue ever since.

The first Pokémon games released were Red (赤) and Green (緑), followed by a third version, Blue (青), containing slight improvements and glitch fixes. For the international release, Red and Green were combined with Blue's graphics and game engine and released as Red and Blue.note A subtle irony in that green and blue are clearly distinguished in Japan but "combined" for Western audiences. The remakes are known as FireRed and LeafGreen worldwide, however.

This extends to the name of the player’s rival, known as "Green" in Japan (which ties in with his family’s plant themed names, the fact that green and red are complementary colors, and the green rug in his bedroom) and "Blue" internationally.

Taken up a level in the Pokémon Adventures manga, where the characters Green (based on the aforementioned rival) and Blue (based on an unused female character who would later inspire the remakes' female player character) have their names swapped in English translations. A source of much headache in the fandom, as one might imagine.

Several Pokémon are listed as "green" in the Pokédex, when most Westerners would consider them teal: specifically, Bronzor, Bronzong, Golett and Golurk are all listed as "green"; this is especially unusual for the last two as they were designed by a Brit, James Turner (though the illustrator, Ken Sugimori, is Japanese).

Several orange Pokémon are affected by this as well, being listed in the Pokédex as either red or brown.

The Orange Star army of Nintendo Wars has red to orange units depending on the game and pink fatigues (they're called the Red Star army in Japan, but —for some reason— this got changed for Western markets).

One of the dyes used to color armors is called "Celeste Green", but its description is "A labor-saving blue dye, used for coloring anything from cloth to metal." What some western players seem to consider a translation mistake reoccurs in other color shades.

In Crisis Core, Aerith comments that Mako energy makes Zack's eyes 'glow blue like the sky'. Zack's eyes are blue, but the way she phrases it makes it clear she's referring to Mako energy itself, which is green.

In Final Fantasy VII Remake, Cloud, who has been blue-eyed in every one of his other appearances and described as such in the text of the original game, has green eyes.

In Undertale, a can of hot chocolate powder in Undyne's house is described as a 'green cylinder' despite being clearly blue on screen. Since the game was written by an American (but homaging Japanese console RPGs), it's likely an homage to this trope.

The coin-op Super Locomotive has blue go signals.

Visual Novels

Torahiko Ōshima from Morenatsu is usually drawn with blue eyes, but some of the artwork shows him with green eyes.

Fate/stay night: Although the text says that Saber's eyes are green, she is more often than not drawn with blue-green or even just flat-out blue eyes.

Western Animation

The "Red Eye" meteor from Steven Universe is mostly colored orange, with only the pupil of the eye actually being red.

Real Life

The point at which more finely differentiated color terms entering a language seems to correspond to the development of that culture's ability to produce pigments of those colors. Many hunter-gatherer cultures have rather limited color vocabulary (e.g. three colors: 'dark' (blacks), 'warm' (reds), and 'cold' (whites), corresponding to the earth-tone pigments available to them. Most bronze age languages (Mycaneian Greek, Chou dynasty Chinese) did not have words distinguishing blue from green corresponding to a lack of technology to create pigments or dyes that were distinguishably either blue or green (an exception was Ancient Egyptian that, uniquely, had a word for blue and a blue pigment made from calcium copper silicate), by the Iron Age most languages had up to 6 distinct color terms including separate terms for blue and green.

Some of the oldest words for non-primary colors surviving from Old English — dun, grey, fallow, etc. — seem to be meant to distinguish the different colors of animal pelts or hides.

In Japan, "go" traffic lights are green, but art of traffic lights is blue. This shows up in an early episode of Transformers Cybertron, where we see an actual traffic light (well, it's a robot in disguise, but still), and a slideshow presentation of a traffic light, and they're different colors.

Related: The three forms of Kamen Rider Accel are supposed to be based off of the three colors in a traffic light. These forms are colored red, yellow and, you guessed it, blue.

The Russian language differentiates two hues of blue. They are siniy for dark, navy blue, and goluboy for a bright azure bluenote (with a secondary meaning of male homosexuality). Green in Russian is zeleniy.

Similarly, and respectively, Italian differentiates the blues as blu and azzuro, Greek as ble and galanos, and Hebrew as kakhol and tekhelet.

While the the color cyan obviously has its own name in English, its more commonly referred to as light blue in English and most languages. This is odd as, from a physical standpoint, cyan (midway between green and blue) is as distinct from true blue as magenta (midway between blue and red) is from blue.

The reason why an orange-plumed bird or orange-furred or haired mammal is described as "red" is that the English language simply did not have a word for "orange" until comparatively recently. Anything of roughly the right hue was described as "red" as this was the only word English had. For example, robins are always described as having a red breast, despite the fact it's more of an orange or russety brown. The red fox, another orange-brown creature, is also seemingly assigned the wrong colour adjective, as are all "red-haired" people and "red tabby" cats. Our word "orange" was imported from French along with the fruit. The French likely removed the initial n because of confusion (une narange - une arange) and changed the initial to o by analogy with 'or' (gold). Anything of that particular colour stopped being "red" and became orange, instead. But older uses persisted.

Inverted with indigo. This was part of an attempt by Isaac Newton to fit the visible spectrum to a classical musical scale, in which indigo and orange were the semitones and red, yellow, green, blue, and violet were the tones. The part of the spectrum he called "blue" was just the bright azure/cyan blue, while the deep blue part he called "indigo"; both then and now, indigo was not a common color term, and today most people learning about the traditional colors of the rainbow are confused by it, thinking that there is some distinctive color between blue and purple that is not a type of blue or of purple. Now it is common, although incorrect, to presume that indigo is a dark bluish purple, closer to blue than even violet is (by comparison, indigo dye, from which the color term arose a generation before Newton was born, is a distinctly blue dye, the dye now used in the manufacture of blue jeans).

To add to the confusion, the "green" light in traffic signals is deliberately mixed with a strong component of blue, to assist people with red-green colour blindness to distinguish between "stop" and "go" at a distance.note In Britain at least, it varies a lot; old incandescent go signals are usually green (often light green, probably because of fading), newer LED go signals are sometimes green but more often the "traffic-light green" which is somewhere between green and cyan, and some are cyan.

When experimental traffic signals which used an X as the "go" signal were tried out in London in 1967, the X was made white rather than green. Presumably both these measures were to assist colour-blind motorists; but they caused more confusion than they prevented.

Traffic signals on London's Croydon Tramlink bypass this problem by using a white | for "go" and a white — for "stop". The rarely-seen "caution" signal (usually only seen where the trams run along the public roadway and thus have their signal mounted below a standard traffic light) is a white + with arms that are much shorter than those of the other two signals.

Heraldic tincture names (such as Azure for blue) are always spelled with a capital intital letter, so as to distinguish "Or" (the metal) from "or" (the conjunction).

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